London, England, UK

Throughout the night, Alex had to check on the laundry because apparently the washer/dryer was only a washer and all the clothing was wet. He was such an amazing husband and didn't wake Danielle but hung up all the clothing in the spare bedroom and put a fan on to dry them. Even by 7AM the clothing was still very wet, but we made it work. Alex didn't get a whole lot of sleep then! Danielle still was not feeling great, so she slept more but not very well either. We woke up once together and decided we needed more sleep so we slept until after 8 today. We had some oatmeal with toast and hazelnut spread which we snatched from our hotel in Amsterdam. One of the other girls who was staying in this Airbnb must have had a not so good night because when we both used the bathroom, there was some throw-up by the shower--ewwww!! Come on ladies. It was disgusting. Another not so good thing about our place is that we could not connect to the internet at all, no signal nothing (we ended up getting a refund for not having any which was nice!)

We wore the driest outfits we had and headed out for the day. Luckily the tube station was a less than 1 minute walk from our place. The tube was fairly expensive, 9.80￡which is about $12.25 one way for both of us. We will walking back I think. It was 66 and sunny!

The tube did bring us right into the heart of the city which we wanted to go see so at least there's a plus! The first place was Westminster where we saw a large open field of flowers for the police commissioner and mother that were stabbed to death recently (2 weeks prior) on the bridge. We also saw Westminster Abbey which is a phenomenal church, the Palace of Westminster (Parliament). Then we went to James' Park-beautiful park, but had some weird looking birds, a cross between geese and ducks, very ugly. This park led us right to Buckingham Palace where the King and Queen live, along with Prince William and Harry. It is rather surprising to see because it is not flashy at all, rather dull, non-elegant of a building. Now the gates coming up to the Palace are exquisite---all decorated with gold and rather intricate. Also the garden in front of the palace is just extraordinarily beautiful with brilliant flowers. 

Then we went on to the Trafalgar Square-lots of streets performers and legit (expensively made) handmade items being sold. This was a very ritzy neighborhood. We found our way around pretty easily. Next we saw the covenant garden which was very pitiful, it was under renovations it looked, very worn down and ugly. Then we took a 30 min walk to St. Paul's Cathedral. It was huge, massive, very expensive to enter so we didn't go in. We actually sat at Starbucks just across from the church to use their wifi since our Airbnb didn't have any. It is very irritating to not have it in our place and we are kinda pissed about it. We also found out the code for the bathroom (when you buy something they give you a code slip with the bathroom code but we just saw the slip and could get in the bathroom). So I guess you can say we snuck in.

After we looked up some places to eat on the internet, we headed back out to explore. We walked by many places and decided on a cafe, but they didn't take credit cards so we had to go somewhere else. So we just started walking around the neighborhood, looking for another place. We were getting pretty hangry by this time and not seeing a lot that we were interested in. Then out of nowhere we walked past this place called Gail's Artesan Bakery. It was all made in the cafe, organic, very cool place. They have a lot of grab'n'go options on a table in the middle of the cafe and also things you can order. We shared a Parmesan chicken sandwich which was so flavorful and delicious and also dark sourdough with scrambled eggs. Their eggs are little more runny/liquidy than U.S. but didn't make my stomach hurt so everything was so tasty. We are thinking its because they don't refrigerate their eggs so they come out a little more liquid and almost powder consistency. Alex even got a coffee (they only serve coffee black) and enjoyed it (he said it was tasty by strong)! This place had a whole back area to use wifi and hang out and free water which was awesome! We sat for a bit and then headed back toward the Airbnb. We were going to walk our way back which should take about an hour. As we were walking in a neighborhood we got to see a drug deal happen right in front of us. We saw two young (18-20 years old) exchange money. One of the kids handed the other a wad of money and they did it just outside a park. They both just kept walking in the opposite directions, just a quick hand off. The kid who gave the money then stopped in a corner convenience store and that was all we saw. I knew drug deals happen everywhere but have never been that close before! Wowza!

On our way we found the British Library and wanted to take a look. Good thing we did because they had such an awesome exhibit of music/sacred text/artifacts. They had the Magna Carta, old bibles (they had the original King James Bible which was so cool to see). They had first manuscripts of the Beatles songs showing how the songs came about. very cool exhibit. We took a look on a few other floors and then headed out. We past the train station we would take tomorrow, so I had already bought the train tickets but needed to print them there so we went in and they have self-printing machines so I checked in and got the tickets (that way we dont have to worry about it tomorrow morning). We made two more stops, one into a grocery store for a sandwich, banana, and chips for the train tomorrow and the second into a local cafe for dinner. He was selling personal size pizzas for 1￡ each, so we got a veggie one and one with cheese and tuna. The guy then said we could choose any two pastries for free--ok are we being poisoned? We chose a chocolate croissant and a cinnamon sugar pretzel. So we got all 4 items for 2￡. And the pizzas actually were tasty- the tuna one was interesting, the tuna did give it some more flavor since the bread was fairly bland. The bread for all the items was a bit dry (probably had been out all day and he was trying to get rid of it). The croissant was not really that good, it lacked flavor. The ones at Panera in the U.S. are much much better.

We finally got back to the place and repacked our now dry clothing and relaxed. We rolled out for a bit, showered, and went to sleep early.

First Impressions:

Very clean, large city, more fashion/edgy dress, very hopping in young 20-year olds, lots of people but doesn't feel crowded. People drive on the right side of the car and the left side of the street. Women all wear make-up, very little smoking. Everyone is very polite and proper, they smile a lot and are very helpful in stores but not pushy. Easy to navigate the city. Males seemed to be much less attractive than their significant others. Lot of languages were spoken and heard-most know or will speak English though. The buildings had an elegant style to them with pointed tops. One the sidewalks, it tells the pedestrian which way to look for cars which was very helpful as a tourist. Everything fairly expensive, exchange rate is not great for Americans.

Exchange rate: 1￡= $1.24